


yoko meshi

by loupettes



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27121816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loupettes/pseuds/loupettes
Summary: "You asked me how long I was gonna stay with you and… I don’t know. I think sometimes you need reminding, s’all. So I thought I’d write it down for you."Ten x Rose, pre-Doomsday angst/fluff. (Mostly fluff).
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 9
Kudos: 48





	yoko meshi

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue prompt: "Did you make that?"

He cast his brown coat over the railings and she neatly folded hers over his. He started fiddling at the control panel, chatting away to either himself or the TARDIS and flicking a few of those odd switches that _surely_ were of some function, they _must_ have been, because she’d never seen them do anything except help make the Doctor look impressive when he needed to.

But as she watched him she felt oddly… displaced. Like he’d just asked her something _more_ than how long she was going to stay with him. She dared to think that perhaps he wasn’t asking how long she was going to travel or how long she’d want to see the stars as they stood under that orange sky, but how long she was going to stay with _him_. Her heart sank at the thought of him not feeling allowed the chance to ask for forever. Like he daren’t ask the universe for it.

She wanted more than anything to ask if he _wanted_ her to stay with him forever, though. The smile he’d given her when she said she would was one like she hadn’t seen from him before. It was almost as though, with those words, she’d given him a peacefulness that had been stolen from him in battle, those wounded eyes healing when she smiled and he’d truly _believed_ it. But she knew that asking him what he wanted would make him uncomfortable. It would force him to confront something she knew he wasn’t ready to yet.

But for the first time, she could _feel_ that he was building himself up to it. All their flirting from the past year had felt weightless and exciting but she’d always been assured _by him_ that it ended there. Recently, though, the flirting had an extra element. An additional quality that wasn’t so much weightless and exciting as it was deep and true. He’d never said it, but she knew.

 _Oh_ , she knew. He made sure of it. Even if it wasn’t the love she wanted him to feel for her - and she was almost certain it wasn’t - he made sure she knew. The look he gave her when he’d first lay eyes on her in the morning, like it was a fresh new day to see her and fall in love with her all over again. The way he’d place his hand on the small of her back when she’d be making them a cup of tea and slicing a few pieces of cake. The way his relaxed facade would fade as he looked at her a little too intensely, like the other day when she started talking him about how she and Shareen used to make terribly bad homemade music videos after school and she could have _sworn_ he was about to lean in and kiss her. Yes, he was building up to it and she could feel it. He knew he would soon be confronting his feelings and deciding once and for all what he wanted to do with them.

Over the next few days, he had relaxed considerably and she knew, without a doubt, that this was a direct result of her promise. He was so _calm_ , barely flinching when she’d rub his shoulders or scratch his hair as she passed him. She couldn’t have known how much that one word would give him all the hope he’d need to keep moving forward, but she was so endlessly grateful for him allowing himself to believe her, to really believe that this would be it now, forever, just the two of them. And somehow, that was all she needed to believe in forever herself.

 _But_ , and it was only on the rare occasion, and barely noticeable if it weren’t for how well she knew him, he would remember. He’d be reminded about _time._ He’d look away just in time to stop himself from kissing her, like he was disappointed in himself for forgetting. It came at any mention of the future - hers or any human they encountered. A late-night conversation with an Andra'ath they met only a few days ago who spoke of losing her loved one. The Doctor had stilled and she became unable to find that calm in him for the rest of their trip. The _worst_ times were when he’d be reminded as they were discussing something together, like yesterday when they were chatting about going home for Jackie’s 40th.

“You know she’s going to want you to give a speech.” Her legs were dangling over the armrest of the sofa as she scribbled down a list of bits and bobs they’d need for Saturday. 

His head was the target of her toes’ teasing as he sat leaning against the chair on the floor besides her. “I am quite aware, but I have a plan.”

“No! Absolutely not, no _plan_. No plan, no surprises, no secrets, not for Mum’s 40th.”

“But I - ”

“Don’t! - ”

“Not even - ”

“I swear to God, if you so much as _think_ about giving my mum grief on her birthday I’ll - no forget that, - _she’ll_ kill you. And we all know what that means.”

“Last of the time lords…”

“Yep. All gone now, wiped out by Jackie Tyler.”

He sighed. “Fine. My plan was actually to just not even turn up. Drop you back at the flat and off on my merry way I’ll be, but you’re right. I’ll behave.”

“Now _that's_ something I highly doubt will happen.”

“Thanks.”

“No probs. But I’m not worried, I have my own plan for keeping you in check.”

“Ha! Now that’s something _I_ highly doubt will happen.”

“Suit yourself. But I’ve got my eye on you, Doctor. Can’t escape me even if you tried.”

“Now why on Earth would I want to do that?”

“You might regret saying that one day.”

She thought she heard the exact second both - well, _all_ \- of their hearts stopped. Something so tantalising as them getting dressed up and having a couple of deliberate and meaningful dances, a few more innocent hair tucks behind her ear, tea and biscuits back at Jackie’s at 2 AM as they both desperately tried to get her to go to sleep amidst her drunken need to sing should not be stained by the dread and the fear of what will come. He changed the subject and cracked a joke of course, and she went along with it to make even just herself feel better too. But God did she hate that he felt this way. What she wouldn’t give to switch places, _anything_ so that he didn’t have to face the ages of the universe alone. She wanted to give him something tangible, something he could hold on to that might give him assurance in knowing that, whilst staying with him forever might be a bit tricky, loving him forever wouldn’t be.

So, she set off for the library and got to work.

***

“Well, that might have been useful to know _two hours ago_.”

“How was I supposed to know that her long lost twin - presumed to be dead, might I add - would come up in conversation?”

She glared at him. “Doctor, her long lost possibly-dead twin didn’t “ _come up in conversation_ ”. Her long lost possibly-dead twin bloody tricked you into fraudulently posing as the _Chancellor_ of the _Exchequer_!”

“Yes, I know! _I was there_!”

“You may as well not have been- without me, you’d have kept on chucking hard-earned tax payer’s money on all those cinnamon buns you couldn’t stop scoffing.”

“I like to think I would have figured it out myself by then.”

“Once again, I find myself asking why you only ever get us into trouble and I only ever get us out of it.”

He grinned, unlocking the doors to the TARDIS and standing aside. He bowed and gestured for her to enter first.

“ _M’lady_.”

She chuckled, adorning a more grandiose impression. “That’s more like it.”

He followed her in, bouncing past her towards the core of the control room. “Right then, tea?”

“Oh, go on then.”

“You know where the kettle is.”

“Cheeky git.” She stuck her tongue to at him, begrudgingly setting off for the kitchen.

“What is this?” he said, picking a blue post-it note off the monitor. His brow furrowed as he looked at the symbol scrawled on it, one belonging to a language only he know how to speak yet written with too much thought and precision to be his own writing.

She grinned, turning at the doorway to face him. “Ok - don’t laugh! But the TARDIS has been teaching me little bits of Gally… Gal - what’s it called?”

“Gallifreyan?”

“Yeah, that! It’s bloody hard though, ancient language, right? So many circles, I needed a few compasses because I’m rubbish at circles. Also, considering this is a language about time, why are the circles read _anti-_ clockwise?”

“What?”

She shook her head, steering herself back on track. “Anyway, yeah. She helped me find this book, I don’t know. Helped me read it. I can’t pronounce a damn thing though, so don’t expect me to be able to tell you how that scribble sounds- ”

“Hold on," - he held his hand up and looked down at the post-it, then back up at her - "did you- did you _make_ this? This is _your_ post-it note? You wrote this, _in_ _Gallifreyan_?”

“Yep.”

“You learnt how to write Gallifreyan?”

“Mmm.”

“You learnt how to write “ _forever_ ” in Gallifreyan?”

“Yeah!” She laughed, proud of herself. “Took me long enough. I got there in the end though. But yeah, there you go. You asked me how long I was gonna stay with you and… I don’t know. I think sometimes you need reminding, s’all. So I thought I’d write it down for you - “ _forever_ ”, I mean - in a language you might understand, and stick it to that monitor so you don’t forget. I know what you’re like,” she added sheepishly, feeling less confident as she went on.

He was still. The longer he didn’t speak the longer it began to eat away at any remaining enthusiasm she might have and she suddenly started to feel dreadfully embarrassed. This long silence was so agonising she wanted so desperately for the floor to completely swallow her up. No, she needed more than that, she _needed_ the TARDIS to just open up below her and suck her into the time vortex.

“Rose, this…” he started, staring down at the note. “I honestly don’t know how… this is.…”

“Incredibly cheesy?”

He shook his head. “Oh, you and I both know I’m not one to decline a good brie, but _this_ …” He tried to smile to ease the tension, he was a master at that by now. But he was stunned, so completely stupefied by this that he couldn’t even think about the muscles required to form that expression. It must have taken her almost a week to write this. No- _longer,_ because she’d never known even the _basics_ of this language. How in the world she’d managed to learn this language from scratch, the background logic, the precise angles, the multiple tenses. He couldn’t quite comprehend it.

She was half expecting him to laugh it off and compare it to a gold-encrusted stilton, so his lack of deflection was unnerving. She narrowed her eyes and her stomach dropped. “It’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“What! No! I’m just genuinely shocked that you were even able to pick this up. It’s an incredibly complex language, and you’ve not even used the easiest form of Gallifreyan!”

“Nope, you’re lying. Tell me.”

“I am not!”

“Tell me now or I’m gonna take that post-it from you and walk out of those doors for good.”

“That’s probably the _polar_ _opposite_ of forever, I’m getting very mixed signals from you here.”

She chewed on her lip to stop herself from crying out in embarrassment. Perhaps it might not be too bad if she generated a couple of paradox reapers if it meant she could go back in time to stop herself from doing this.

He hesitated for a moment, contemplating whether he should tell her, before looking at her apologetically. “It’s just... it just doesn’t _actually_ say “ _forever_ ”. Not quite.”

She’d never felt the blood rush to her face so fast and she was _mortified_. This was a mistake. “Oh my god, what does it say?” She snapped the note out of his hand, huffing in frustration when she realised she would have no idea what was wrong with it anyway. “Have I written something really embarrassing? Oh god, have I written something like “naked” or “racoon”?”

“No,” he chuckled, shaking his head and taking the post-it note back from her. “It’s actually just a _little_ _short_ of forever. “ _Eternal”_ is quite a hard concept to grasp in the language of time, funnily enough. Depicting it is _very_ tricky, see -" he pointed to one of the diagonal lines, “ - the degree of this line here has to be _incredibly_ precise. But even still, this is _remarkably_ impressive. _How_ you’ve managed to teach yourself this, I’ll never know.”

“Well, ok so, how long does it actually say?”

He smiled so utterly sweetly at her and there it was. That thing in his eyes, so sincere and honest and she felt this wave of _love_ spread through her just by accepting his gaze. “It’s just, not _quite_ “ _forever_ ”. A _fraction_ off, honestly just a fraction! It’s tiny, nothing. Promise.”

She rolled her eyes and nudged his arm. “Fine, I’ll stay with you _just short_ of forever then. That good enough?”

“Oh, Rose Tyler.” His smile only widened as he tucked the note into his pocket and pulled her into a hug so tender she finally heard his plea for her to stay. “ _Absolutely_.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Almost Forever](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27382774) by [doesitneedsaying](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doesitneedsaying/pseuds/doesitneedsaying)




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